Mass spectrometry identifies the amount and type of chemicals present in a sample by ionizing the gas flow or vapor flow, separating resulting fragmented ionized components, and measuring the abundance of each type of ionized component. Several ionization techniques and ionization sources are available. A particular technique and ionization source are selected based in part, upon the nature of the sample flow. As a result, a mass spectrometer frequently needs to be reconfigured to accommodate a different ionization source.
The mass analyzer and detector regions of the mass spectrometer are sealed under a high vacuum. This high vacuum needs to be broken each time an ionization source is changed. Therefore, a great deal of time is required to change over to another ionization source and to provide a new vacuum environment within the mass spectrometer.